GREAT NEWS ON REGULATION FROM THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

The Trump administration has adopted new limits on the use of “guidance documents” that federal agencies have issued on almost every conceivable subject, an action that could have sweeping implications for the government’s ability to sue companies accused of violations.

Guidance documents offer the government’s interpretation of laws, and often when individuals or companies face accusations of legal violations, what they have really violated are the guidance documents. …

It also advances a goal declared by President Trump in his first days in office: to reduce the burden and cost of federal rules and requirements. …

The new policy, issued by the No. 3 official at the Justice Department, Rachel L. Brand, is significant because federal agencies have issued hundreds of guidance documents on a wide range of laws covering issues like health care, the environment, civil rights and labor.

Many of the Obama administration’s worst actions involved issuance of “guidance,” i.e., a left-wing interpretation of federal law that was often tendentious if not outright untenable. Nevertheless, most companies, universities, etc., were cowed into complying with Obama’s “guidances.” Glenn Reynolds offers the definitive commentary:

Good. “Guidance” is bullshit. Either do a rule making, or stay home.

Rule making under the Administrative Procedure Act requires following an actual process, with public comment and opportunity for appeal. Thus it is inconvenient for leftists. Issuing “guidance” is an inappropriate shortcut that generally just means implementing the administration’s political wish list.

This is another example of one of the Trump administration’s greatest virtues: restoration of the rule of law.

It is also great for the economy. Why did the stock market begin to soar and economic growth accelerate after President Trump was elected, even before he was inaugurated and had any opportunity to implement his policies? Numerous business people have said that Trump’s election meant that for at least four years, they did not have to fear sudden, arbitrary and expensive changes in federal regulation that imposed unreasonable burdens on their businesses, and were hard if not impossible to plan for. Thus companies started to invest in America even before Trump took office. The administration’s repudiation of its predecessor’s “guidance” shortcuts confirms that businesses were right to expect a more normal regulatory regime under President Trump.

A Brief History of the Fake News Media

by David Solway at American Thinker:

“For far too long, I was convinced that the media were, on the whole, reliable purveyors of the news. For nearly three years I freelanced happily at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Music and Public Affairs, never suspecting that the Mothercorp was a hive of Liberal propaganda and an artesian fount of scandalously disingenuous broadcasting. It took 9/11 and the generally extenuating media reports over time, faulting the U.S. and exempting Islam, to shake up my thinking and turn me into a sceptical fact-finder.The media are especially adept at creating villains out of whole cloth for public consumption to advance a particular and often dubious purpose. How else explain the transformation of significant political figures into synonyms for perfidy and opprobrium. I’m thinking in particular of Joe McCarthy, Barry Goldwater and Enoch Powell, all of whom considered themselves patriots and enunciated unpopular or anti-establishment truths, costing them their reputations both in their lifetimes and for posterity.

As Diana West writes of McCarthy, “after more than 60 years of ‘McCarthyism’—the perpetual slander of Joseph McCarthy as a ‘witch-hunter,’ as opposed to an honest accounting of this fearless investigator of deep and widespread infiltration of the US government by Stalin’s secret agents…Americans have been conditioned to…hate, loathe and revile McCarthy…The slander of ‘McCarthyism,’…has had the dire effect of bludgeoning our abilities to detect or even acknowledge the existence of any constitutional enemies, especially ‘domestic.’ ”

Favorable commentators will admit that McCarthy may have been guilty of exaggerations and errors, but as the Venona transcripts have verified, he was right overall. He may have manifested as vindictive, yet he was remorseless in his campaign to isolate Communist sympathizers in government circles who worked to subvert the country. This, of course, made him anathema to a treasonous press and a political establishment that had much to hide, whether their complicity or their negligence.

Barry Goldwater has fared no better. When asked in a July 9, 1964 interview in Der Spiegel about his advocating the use of nuclear weapons to defoliate the jungles in Vietnam, Goldwater replied “About a month‐and‐a­ half ago on a television show I was asked a technical ques­tion, how could you get at the trails through the rain forests of North Vietnam. Well, I served in the rain forests of Burma and I know that the only practical way to get at them is defoliation so an answer to a technical question like this—one pos­sible way of doing it even though I made clear this would never be done, would be the use of low‐yield nu­clear devices” (emphasis mine). As the Daily Mail History section pointed out, “Democrats painted Goldwater as a warmonger who was overly eager to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam.” And, of course, with few exceptions like the Daily Mail, the MSM was all over it, painting Goldwater as a nuclear warhawk, a kind of Dr. Strangelove. (The film appeared on January 29, 1964, 10 months before the Johnson-Goldwater election. The writing was already on the wall.)

I was young and shallow at the time and a knee-jerk leftist, so I took it as media gospel that Goldwater was about to launch a nuclear firestorm. Shortly afterward, I was all for LBJ’s Great Society—a socialist term coined by Fabian Society stalwart Graham Wallas—since the press assured me it was a good thing. How could a “War on Poverty” go wrong?

It was only much later, when I developed some common sense, shook off the political amblyopia which afflicted me, and actually studied the issue, that I realized the Great Society was at best and only in part a qualified success, but ultimately and in many respects a dismal failure: grossly unaffordable, unleashing a pro-Third World immigration nightmare from which we are suffering today, and furnishing an incentive to welfare parasitism. As Ronald Reagan famously remarked, “In the 60s we waged a war on poverty, and poverty won.” But Johnson was elected by a landslide and Goldwater, who in my estimation would have made a much better president, relegated to the halls of infamy.

Then there was the infamous newspaper-generated case of Enoch Powell. As I wrote in a previous article, Powell warned in his 1968, so-called “rivers of blood” speech of the imminent and future perils of unchecked immigration. Powell was worried mainly about immigration from the West Indies, which was transforming traditional neighborhoods into violent ghettoes, whose first and second generation inhabitants were not interested in cultural integration.

Powell’s “river of blood” was an allusion to a passage from Book VI of Virgil’s Aeneid in which the Sibyl prophesizes that the “Tiber would flow with blood” as a metaphor for civil discord. As we observe the relentless Islamization of the U.K., can we say he was wrong? Naturally, Powell would today have received the same or worse misuse from the media, which would have tattooed him as a white supremacist, a bigot and an Islamophobe.

Indeed, similar, if somewhat less virulent, treatment has been meted out to London barrister Gavin Boby of “mosque buster” fame. Boby has been the target of media calumny for assisting British homeowners in preparing and filing legal actions to preserve their neighborhoods from the erection of mosques, which collapse property values and render local life increasingly distressing and in many case untenable. Boby has told me stories about severed cables and wires, broken windows, commandeered driveways, residential streets clogged with traffic, harassment of dog owners, pedestrian bullying, forced sales of depressed properties and more, which have driven longtime residents to despair. Boby works pro bono and is strikingly successful, a fact which makes him non grata to the media and the power elites.

Thus, when I think back, I’m appalled at my own naiveté. McCarthy was the devil’s spawn. Goldwater would initiate a nuclear firestorm. Powell was an irremediable racist. And Islam, of course, is a noble and magnanimous faith. 9/11 changed everything for me and compelled me to embark on a scrupulous five-year program of what I call the indispensable three Rs, Reading, Research and Reflection, which cured me of my media fantasy and culminated in the publication of The Big Lie in 2007/8 and The Boxthorn Tree in 2012.

The media lie has now acquired epic dimensions. Gary Demar puts it succinctly in an article for Godfather Politics: Obviously, much if not most of what we read in articles and screeds written by liberals “is designed to distort the truth. Some are willing to lie for what they perceive to be their idea of the greater good. Others just put the worst spin on out-of-context statements to elevate the blood pressure of their targeted ultra-liberal audience.”

The Fake News Syndrome, as I’ve stressed, is nothing new. It’s been approximately the case for as long as we can remember. The only discrimination between the MSM and the FNM is that the latter has become effectively coterminous with the former. Previously there were a few, if not many, reasonably impartial news venues; today these are practically non-existent.

Eventually, I realized that the Western media were even more insidious than the Soviet controlled news outfits. Many Russians knew that Pravda and Izvestia were propaganda arms of the Politburo and discounted their stories as rubbish; many Westerners, on the other hand, are readily deceived, believing the press is free from bias and generally principled and reliable. I know now, however belatedly, that our media constitute one of the gravest threats to our democratic traditions and wonder how I could ever have been so gullible…….”

Warning! The following collection of noise is likely to cause one of the most powerful drug addictions if listened too frequently, creating an addiction to love mankind’s greatest music ‘infecting’ the human ear, mind, and soul! Proceed with caution!

“Wikipedia” It first should be note that despite its leftists’ claims, Wikipedia is a left wing propaganda “station” from “stark” to mild, from landslide to swamp.

Why? Wikipedia is an indoor class, a remote Hillary class of our America….a very narrow minded, inexperienced, and school programmed bunch of fanatics who disparage humans who “aren’t up to knowing “Hillary” stuff and snuff. In today’s Wikiepedia America this stuff and snuff appear in all sorts of costumes, shapes, colors, sexes, and Godless sizes selling Fascism, Marxism, Leftism, Atheism, Communism, and Feminism of all shapes and sizes, sexes and colors at school, university, on television and throughout your daily newspaper often conveying Washington Post, Los Angeles, and New York Times fake news.

Please read the Wikileaks report below regarding the “Hillary” review of those of us who dare to offend Hillary’s deplorable elites….

Hillary Speaks from Wikileaks:

“But the “other” basket — the other basket — and I know because I look at this crowd I see friends from all over America here: I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas and — as well as, you know, New York and California — but that “other” basket of people are people who feel the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures; and they’re just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says, but — he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.

“Basket of deplorables” is a phrase from a 2016 presidential election campaign speech delivered by Democraticnominee Hillary Clinton on September 9, 2016, at a campaign fundraising event, which Clinton used to describe a faction of supporters of her general election opponent, Republican nominee Donald Trump. Clinton later said that she “regrets saying half [of Trump’s supporters]”, and the Trump campaign repeatedly used the phrase against her during and after the 2016 presidential election. Many Trump supporters adopted the “Deplorable” moniker for themselves. After Clinton’s loss, some journalists and political analysts questioned whether or not the speech played a role in the election’s outcome; Clinton herself wrote in her book What Happened that it was one of the factors for her loss.

Throughout her presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton expressed her concerns regarding Donald Trump and his supporters. The New York Times and CNN cited Clinton’s earlier articulation of similar ideas to the phrase in her August 25, 2016 campaign speech at a rally in Reno, Nevada.[1][2] In that speech, Clinton had criticized Trump’s campaign for using “racist lies” and allowing the alt-right to gain prominence, claiming that Trump was “taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over the Republican Party”.[2][3] Clinton also criticized Trump for choosing Steve Bannon as his chief executive officer, especially given Bannon’s role as the executive chair of the conservative news website, Breitbart News.[4] Clinton read various headlines from the site including: “Would You Rather Your Child Had Feminism or Cancer?”, and “Hoist It High And Proud: The Confederate Flag Proclaims A Glorious Heritage.”[5] On that same day, Clinton posted a video on Twitter depicting white supremacists supporting Donald Trump. Within the video is a CNNinterview wherein Trump initially declined to disavow white nationalistDavid Duke.[4]

During campaign fundraisers in August 2016, Clinton reportedly explained her divide and conquer approach to courting Republican voters by putting Trump supporters into two “baskets”: everyday Republicans whom she would target, and the alt-right crowd.[6] During a September 8, 2016 interview on Israel’s Channel 2, Clinton said: “You can take Trump supporters and put them in two big baskets. There are what I would call the deplorables—you know, the racists and the haters, and the people who are drawn because they think somehow he’s going to restore an America that no longer exists.”[7]

At an LGBT campaign fundraising event in New York City on September 9, Clinton gave a speech and said the following:[8]

I know there are only 60 days left to make our case — and don’t get complacent; don’t see the latest outrageous, offensive, inappropriate comment and think, “Well, he’s done this time.” We are living in a volatile political environment.

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. (Laughter/applause)Right? (Laughter/applause) They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic — Islamophobic — you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people — now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks — they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America.

But the “other” basket — the other basket — and I know because I look at this crowd I see friends from all over America here: I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas and — as well as, you know, New York and California — but that “other” basket of people are people who feel the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures; and they’re just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says, but — he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.

ANOTHER EXPLODING CIGAR BLOWS UP IN CNN’S FACE [UPDATED]

by John Hinderaker at PowerLine:

CNN, in its daily effort to discredit President Trump, hastily published a leak from Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee that turned out to be false. CNN initially claimed that someone emailed Donald Trump, Jr. a link to a Wikileaks DNC dump on September 4, 2016. CNN said this information was based on “accounts from two sources who had seen the email.” Those sources obviously were Democrat committee members or staffers; Donald Jr. testified about the email before the Intelligence Committee on Wednesday.

CNN attributed significance to the email because it allegedly was dated September 4, nine days before the Wikileaks documents in question were made public. But–oops–the Democrats misinformed CNN. The email is actually dated September 14, the day after the documents were released. So a Trump supporter was simply trying to call the Trump campaign’s attention to publicly-available documents.

Correction: This story has been corrected to say the date of the email was September 14, 2016, not September 4, 2016. The story also changed the headline and removed a tweet from Donald Trump Jr., who posted a message about WikiLeaks on September 4, 2016.
***
CNN originally reported the email was released September 4 — 10 days earlier — based on accounts from two sources who had seen the email. The new details appear to show that the sender was relying on publicly available information. The new information indicates that the communication is less significant than CNN initially reported.

Actually, the “new details”–i.e., the correct email date–mean that the communication has no significance whatsoever.

A Trump lawyer jams the error, plainly born of eagerness to “get” the president, down CNN’s throat, as reported by the Washington Post:

Alan S. Futerfas, an attorney for Trump Jr., described it as one of “a ton of unsolicited emails like this on a variety of topics.”

Futerfas said Erickson [the sender] was unknown to Trump Jr. or the campaign. The message was one of thousands turned over to the House Intelligence Committee and others investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, emails that included spam and junk emails. Trump Jr. was asked about the email Wednesday, when he spent about seven hours behind closed doors answering questions from members of the committee.

“The email was never read or responded to — and the House Intelligence Committee knows this,” Futerbas said. “It is profoundly disappointing that members of the House Intelligence Committee would deliberately leak a document, with the misleading suggestion that the information was not public, when they know that there is not a scintilla of evidence that Mr. Trump Jr. read or responded to the email.”

…He expressed anger that details of the session leaked out before it had even concluded. “We are concerned that these actions, combined with the deliberate and misleading leak of a meaningless email, undermine the credibility of the serious work the House Intelligence Committee is supposedly undertaking,” he said.

It’s another black mark for CNN. I have said before that CNN should abandon all of its television programming, and simply fill the screen with a sign that says, “We hate President Trump.” That would save a lot of trouble, and avoid quite a few factual errors.

UPDATE: CBS picked up CNN’s fake news and couldn’t bear to let go of it. Twitchy has the story. When the entire story blew up in the faces of CNN and CBS (and no doubt others), CBS couldn’t bear to call it a correction. Hey, what do the facts matter when you are trying to #Resist?

One Day Later – Has Hannity Dodged the ‘Kill Shot’ Aimed at Him?

“An avalanche of mass defections of advertisers from Sean Hannity’s Fox News program appears to have been staunched – at least for the present. Over the weekend, initially five, and then more, major sponsors were about to bolt. On Monday, the CEO of the company in the forefront of the defections, Keurig, apologized for his company’s threat to quit running its commercials on Hannity’s show. With that move, the tide against Hannity appeared to be turning. At least that is how Hannity positioned the news.

Monday was a day of fast-breaking developments, with Hannity’s fans, social media, and Hannity’s four hours of live radio and TV shows in the forefront. The sponsor defections started to gain momentum on Sunday after Media Matters for America (MMFA), a well-funded, left wing not-for-profit anti-conservative group with a long enmity toward Hannity, weighed in. MMFA construed Hannity’s reporting on Judge Roy Moore as support for the embattled Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Alabama. MMFA has been encouraging sponsors to desert Hannity’s shows for months, and Hannity’s attempt to cover the red-hot Roy Moore story in a fair and balanced way gave Media Matters and its supporters a new opening to attack him. Recall that the network’s star Bill O’Reilly lost his show after sponsors started to abandon him in the wake of sexual harassment charges.

Last Thursday, the Washington Post published an article alleging that Moore had engaged in inappropriate, or even illegal, intimate contact with teenage girls two decades his junior back in the 1970s. The following day, Hannity interviewed Moore at length by telephone on his afternoon radio show – putting Moore on the record for the first time since the Post story was published and created a firestorm…….”